


As Tender as Infancy and Grace

by chaturastarlight



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bullying, Hermione is bullied, Kid Hermione Granger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-24 14:55:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21340066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaturastarlight/pseuds/chaturastarlight
Summary: When Ron Weasley says "It's no wonder no one can stand her, she's a nightmare, honestly," Hermione Granger takes a deep breath, releases it, and moves on- if they aren't going to like her no matter what she does, why would she limit herself?
Comments: 3
Kudos: 37





	As Tender as Infancy and Grace

This is the story of a Hermione Granger who heard Ron Weasley, _“It’s no wonder no one can stand her, she’s a nightmare, honestly,” _and only bit her lip in disappointment. She thought Hogwarts would be different. 

Different from her primary school where Sarah Burke cut a chunk of her frizzy hair off when they were cutting and pasting numbers during maths year one and told her it looked better that way. 

Different from Angela Pearce who dubbed her “Beaver” at the end of third year when her front teeth grew in as an overbite and the group of girls (Angela, Sarah, and their friend Emily Warren) who threw sticks at her during recess to taunt her. Emily told her in the beginning of fourth that maybe if she started eating sticks she wouldn’t be as fat and ugly. 

Different from Jamie Graham, who moved from Kent halfway through fifth and she thought they were friends- they spent recess in the libraries together, reading books silently side-by-side, not talking but still _together_\- before he told Tommy Bartlett she liked him and the two boys laughed themselves silly at the image of _someone actually _liking _bint Hermione Granger_. _Maybe the janitor will kiss you Beaver, but I’m not going near your nasty face. _Tommy Bartlett rubbed her face in the dirt the next summer and called her an “insufferable know-it-all.” Honestly, she was surprised he knew the word insufferable. 

So, when Hermione Granger overheard Ron Weasley that Halloween morning, she was disappointed. But surprised? Upset? Not particularly. 

In another world, maybe his words had cut more. Maybe she had hoped just a little bit more, wished just one more time that in the two months she’d been at Hogwarts that maybe she’d make a friend (she’d spent those two months _devouring_ the library instead). In another world, maybe she burst into tears, realizing the wizarding world is just like the muggle world and some people will always feel the need to torment others to make themselves feel better. And maybe in that world, she ran to the bathroom to cry- as she did in grade six, the day before she received her Hogwarts letter in the mail, the day before she turned eleven, because Angela held down her arm while Rachel Fisher took an eraser to her skin until it _burned_\- and when the troll came that night, maybe Ron and Harry came to save her. Maybe they were her first friends. 

The sorting hat had warned her she wouldn’t make many friends in Gryffindor and she had replied she didn’t care about making friends, she wanted to go where suited her best- and isn’t that a form of bravery in and of itself?

_ Ah, ambition,  _ the sorting hat whispered in her mind. _Ambition to prove to those who tormented you they were wrong. Intelligent, a quick thinker, with a desire to learn everything. I can see you aspire to change the world with that knowledge, and that is not an easy path. You’ll need a fair amount of courage for that. But you won’t make many friends on that path. You’re snappy, you are, better be _GRYFFINDOR!

In this world, Hermione Granger held her head up against the onslaught of insults and the wave of disappointment. Disappointed most in herself for ever thinking things would be different. How could they be different? And she took a deep breath, released it, and moved on- they had herbology after charms that day, after all, and she had read about this plant in Africa that glows purple on new moons and turns crystal blue on full moons and wanted to discuss it with Professor Sprout- and told herself under her breath that she didn’t care.

After years of being tormented, Hermione stopped. Stopped braiding her hair after her nightly shower to try and confine her untamable brown locks into the neat curls the girls around her preferred, stopped trying to hide her teeth when talking to someone or not smiling in pictures (though she often catches herself smiling with her lips closed and has to remind herself _she doesn’t care, remember?_), stopped trying to limit her intelligence to make her classmates like her more because if they aren’t going to like her no matter what she does, why would she limit herself? 

She came into this secret world, received a letter about _magic_, and dedicated herself to doing absolutely nothing but her best because this opportunity to escape her childhood bullies- half of which she would have ended up at secondary with- and learn to be a witch? Was never something she was willing to pass up. So, she learned, and she practiced, over and over; devoured every book she could get her hands on that a first year could understand and then she taught herself to understand the others. She pulled dictionaries off the shelves and ate up magical terminology for breakfast, munched on magical theory for lunch, slurped up the history and modern application of magic for dinner. She cross referenced every other sentence to get through a third year book on arithmancy, cornered a fifth year Ravenclaw and demanded to know why a 47 degree angle specifically was so important for this ancient rune instead of the 52 degree angle used by the ancient Sumerians, visited Hagrid one Saturday to run through a book on dangerous creatures demanding to know the reasoning behind the classification of specific animals. 

Hermione Granger absorbed knowledge like a sponge. And this world, this biased, unforgiving world of magic, gave her the opportunity to learn beyond her imagination. Why would she need friends?

But during the first Quidditch match, when Harry Potter’s broom stick tried to kill him, she only had eyes for him- the eleven year old boy in her year, in her house, the size of a thin nine-year-old at _best_, about to fall a hundred feet down- and she ran through every spell she knew that could save him, that could help him, she pulled out her wand, ready for anything, ready to help, ready for- 

He fell.

“_Culcita Lenis!”_

_ _

In the end, she assumes other people cast spells as well, more powerful spells, specifically the teachers. But after the match is called, and Harry is treated in the hospital wing for minor cuts and bruises, he sits down next to her at breakfast the next morning.

“Thanks,” he says softly halfway through a piece of buttered toast, and she smiles.

There are some things you can’t share without ending up liking each other, and throwing a third year cushioning charm at someone falling to their likely death is one of them.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from The Winter's Tale. Act V, Scene III, Leontes.
> 
> Culcita Lenis is some mix-matched latin spell I made up. If it doesn't make sense too bad.


End file.
